Monday, June 29, 2009

Last week was a bit strange. I headed out of town on Thursday, and needed to have my training coincided with someone else's on friday, so I had to cut the deload a little short, so instead of deloading actively for longer, I took some extra days off.. Not ideal, but not bad. More on that.

Last Monday night I went to class.. we did jiu-jutsu.. I worked with some of our competition guys on take downs. Mostly running drills and coaching. I got enough work in, but also let my back heal up a bit.

Tuesday was Cycle 3 week 1 military day:Military press:5 at 1155 at 1308 at 145this was off of a pr, but my week 1 numbers are usually low.

superset:1a dumbell rows8 at 90

dips:10 at bw + 253 rounds

face pulls x volume.

wednesday I did some light conditioning, and spent my last night in town with the wife.

Thursday was spent on an airplane. I got in to the STL and met up with some folks for dinner. It was a bit of a hodge podge of friends from different eras in my life, but they all knew each other.. sorta. I had some St. Louis style BBQ that was ok, and some toasted Ravioli which are always delicious.I got to my parent's house around 11. Got to the front door and it was locked. I knocked.. no one answered. I decided to climb around the back and see if I could get in through the screened in porch. I had my backpack and a hanging bag with my sunday best in it. It was dark and I was traversing some landscaping that my folks just had put in (so I had no idea what I was tripping over) I managed to get around without breaking my neck or dropping my clothes in the mud. I did my best not to give my mom a heart attack when I came in (she fell asleep watching T.V.).

Friday morning I got up at 4:30 (2:30 my time) and headed to train with CES. I brought 3 cups of the weakest coffee known to man (aka my mom's morning cup of joe).Warmed up then Deads:5 at 2855 at 3308 at 370 this was a couple reps off of a pr, but considering strange surroundings, travel, and no sleep I was in no way surprised.Single leg squats to a box:5/5 x 5From there I showered and cleaned up and got 6 shots of espresso, and headed down to Bob Evans to meet my old man for breakfast. He's doing well. We drank coffee and talked for a good long time. It was great to see him.I drove back into the city and bought some Redbirds gear at the mall.I hit up Starbucks for 4 more shots, and dropped off my rental car. CES picked me up and we went to his house to hang out and to see his kids. We walk in and they are racked out on the couches in the living room. Passed out, dead to the world. I talked with Mrs. CES for a while, and then we picked Douglas and headed to Busch.The game was great. Ankiel and Pujols made some great plays in the field. We had a chance to win in the 9th, but didn't pull it off. We lost, but it was close and I got to hang out with my brother (who met us at the ballpark) and my two oldest friends.I went home and fell immediately asleep.

Saturday, was the wedding. I got up and had breakfast with Mom, step-dad, brother, and sister-in-law. It was fairly pleasent. I went for a bit of a swim, showered and put on my sunday goin-to-meetin clothes. Driving to the wedding it was 100+ outside. Humidity was over 80%. It sucked. The wedding was nice. Jake and his bride are very much in love, and positive happy people. It's fun to be around them. We took some pictures, and then went back to my parents house. I took off my dress clothes and read and napped for a couple hours. We had some Imo's pizza for lunch (which if you're ever in the STL you must try). At 6:30 we headed to the reception. They were playing Sinatra, and I talked to some family before they climbed into the bottle for the evening. We had dinner. Since it was a wedding in St. Louis, Mostacholi was prominently featured.After a while I'd reached saturation and went for a walk. It was a warm night, but far cooler than the day. I went to a pasture that adjoined the Knights of Columbus hall, and watched the fireflys flicker as a thunderhead rolled in. It was peaceful, beautiful, and one of the few things I miss about living down there. Once the storm rolled in the reception was history. I drove my folks home and we sat up for a while.Sunday I got up early and headed home.I am glad to be home.Mahalo.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Last Saturday I took the liberty of using my gym's impedance based scale/body fat measuring.. thing. Those things can be pretty inaccurate, so all is taken with a grain of salt.Here are the results:Height: 5'10"Weight: 218Bf %: 19.4LBM: 176FM: 42weight at sub 10%: 197I can't speak to the accuracy of the device, but these numbers are pretty much dead on my estimates, so I'm going to go with them. I am pretty happy with being below 20% bf, which is in the "acceptable" range (in spite of a BMI that screams MORBIDLY OBESE) In fact in order to have a BMI that was not too high, I'd actually have to lose all of my body fat, and a couple pounds of LBM.. I'd be dead, but then we've had that discussion before. I am going to keep training the way I am for the next few weeks, then I have some time off scheduled at which time I am going to spend 4 weeks really tightening my diet and see if I can get under 205 which would put me at about 12% (give or take).We shall see how this goes.

Monday training:Arm bar to oma plata to triangle transition. Couple position specific drills, and called it a night.

Tuesday training:no conditioning.Bench week 35 at 1753 at 2009 at 220 (hugenormous PR. Previous best was 3 at 225 could not be happier with this)

Monday, June 15, 2009

Friday after training Michelle brought over her PS3 and we played UFC: Undisputed. This game is a blast. It helps to know a bit about mma, but you can figure it out in time. The controls are very complicated. The stand-up is far easier to use than the grappling, but within a few fights we were grappling pretty well. Graphics are good, lots of detail on each fighter. Good fun.

Friday training was a clinic on the hang clean, then 2 reps each in rotation for 20 minutes.Light on conditioning, but if we can incorporate the oly lifts, that will open things up for more power output training.

Saturday we learned a very simple choke from mount that Roger Gracie used to great effect at Mundials this year.Seen at the end of this video:

It's a cool choke, and one that I need to revisit.I sparred a couple of times. The back held up, pretty well. Still a little sore in the afternoon.So I took the afternoon off.

Sunday got up and did a lot of stretching and mobility work. I watched the Cards get mowed down by Cliff Lee on ESPN. All in all a good weekend.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Yesterday, An 88 year old white-supremacist and holocaust denier went in to the National Holocaust Museum with the intent on shooting as many people as he could. Security guards shot him, but not before he shot a couple people himself. Just a sad and terrible act.I can very vaguely conceptualize racism, I don't agree with it, but I understand how a weak person could fall into that trap: people like me used to have power over these other people, so I should have power over them. It's pathetic and sad, but I can understand feeling powerless and grasping at straws.I don't understand Holocaust denial. Perhaps because I have met someone who was interned at a concentration camp. Even from arms length, it doesn't get these racist morons anything. All it does is give quantifiable evidence that you're an idiot. There is video footage, and all kinds of documents from the Nazis to back it up. Books and anecdotes from both sides. It happened. Denying it only shows the rest of us how fast and loose you are playing with history to bend it to your agenda.Give it up, and go away.N.P.F.O.

Training for the week:Monday was just some light stretching trying to recover and let the back heal up.

Afternoon training:10x single length prowler push+1408x rope hand over hand pulls at length of ropeeleventeen x lay on the floor and pant.

Wednesday night jitz:Learned to take the back or sweep from guard. Did some very technical rolling no hands and then one hand. Makes you think about base, positioning, and movement.Called it a day because my sciatic was pissed at me.

this morning:5/3/1 week 3 deads:5 at 3203 at 3656 at 405 major pr**previous best was 3 reps. I did 4 in a row, reset grip did 1, reset grip did 1. Grip usually isn't a problem, but my forearms are still sore from climbing and the rope pulling, so I'll allow it.

Low box step-ups:5/5/5/5/5/5 at 9510/10 at 95done and done.

tonight will be some light conditioning and dinner with the wife's grandparents for their 65th wedding anniversary. I told the wife I couldn't imagine being ALIVE for 65 years, let alone married for that long. Will I change my tune... I'll get back to you in 60 years or so.Mahalo.

Monday, June 8, 2009

I had a good weekend. Lots of time spent with friends and the wife. The weather has been clear and cool. Just about perfect.Thursday afternoon conditioning:10-5 laddersnatch (each hand)long cycle clean and press (each hand)swing (each hand)all at 53lbsGood hard work.Came out of the Gym and found that our Portland office had fallen over. Made a few quick calls to get it rolling, but ended up staying at work well after quitting time.

Friday workout was murder:kb snatch to tgu at 4435lb plate put your feet on the plate in push-up position seal walk 15m then go back without turning around (head first down, feet first back) 3x (timing station) These were murder, just awful. Such a simple thing, but damn hard.trx suspended push-up and rows at bwkb snatch to tgu at 4435lb plate put your feet on the plate in push-up position seal walk 15m then go back without turning around (head first down, feet first back) 2x (timing station)push-up to renegade row at 30lb dumbbell.this was brutal. My entire "flank steak" is sore abs, obliques.. everything.From there everyone came back to my place to watch UFC 98 on the dvr and relax for a bit.

Saturday: Jitz: the professor is out of town for Mundials so Paul taught class. We worked on some base and movement, controlling an opponent who is in turtle. recovering guard from turtle.. ect. I had one roll with Paul, and that was it. I was beat from friday's work and am still worried about my back.Saturday afternoon in the gym:Week 2 bench day:worked up to 3x 165 3x 185 11x 210 (Major PR) I've really worked on my technique, and it's paid off.

chins 5x5 very strict

push ups:3x10 at bw+25

Our big Saturday night plans: get some tacos, and take our books to the local coffee house. It was great. This type of thing has always been more me than any big shindig. I don't do well in crowds, and I tend to either be too loud or damn quiet to make up for my discomfort.

Sunday, more reading, and some climbing. The wife finally bought her own pair of climbing shoes so we don't have to keep paying 5$ to rent them every week. I watched the WEC fights last night. I was really sad to see Jens lose again. He's a great dude, and it's getting really hard to watch him keep getting beat.Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone has the makeup to be a titleholder.. soon.The Antonio Banuelos v. Scott Jorgensen was good. Good matchmaking and well fought.Jose Aldo is impressive, but I haven't seen him in deep water yet.I do like Mike Brown, and I hate that Faber broke his hand so that his fans have an 'out' for the loss.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Been up to my eyeballs in Anti-virus work, it's been good, but I'm neglecting you. So here we are. I have been babying my back so my training has been good, but not great. It's hard to muster enthusiasm to do it let alone write about it once it's done.. but (knock wood) the back feels pretty good and should be out of the woods.Monday class was pretty careful I sat out of most of it.Tuesday was Week 2 military day:3 at 1203 at 1357 at 150This is a pr, and I'm feeling pretty good about these.

DB row/dips superset.rows:3x 10/10 at 85

dips: 15,15,20 at bw.

face pulls:lots at some weight.

Tuesday night the wife and I went to see X-men. First off, weekday movies are great. Exactly 6 other people in the whole theater. Second, the movie was damned entertaining. Before we got there I told the fanboy inside my head to shut the hell up, and that we were going to go see a summer popcorn flick. There were a couple parts that were contrived, a few plot holes, but overall I was entertained.

Wednesday class kinda stunk. I thought I'd tweaked my back during warm-ups and was in my head the rest of the night.

Today was deadlift day:3 at 3003 at 3407 at 385there were more reps in the tank. Hopefully the next deadlift day I won't have to hold back.

low box step-ups at 954x5/5 continuous.

The past few weeks have been a little disappointing. I have to let go of the fact that I might have left some training sessions in the tank and focus on the next session.Start today:

Monday, June 1, 2009

Last week was madness. For all of the stuff I have to do at work already that virus outbreak put the breaks on all of it.. but it ended up being a good thing in that I now have access to the AV gear. Training last week was good, but I decided to skip the squat workout on Saturday afternoon and let my back heal up.Thursday: Bench day week 1:5 at 1505 at 17510 at 200

chins: various grips5x amap

push-ups:50 very strict reps.

that afternoon I did some light jump-rope stuff nothing of note.

Friday:prowler pushes down and back at +140x5

then push down and rope pull backx5very tired.

Saturday was a great day class.Paulo brought in his new little baby girl. She's cute as a bug's ear. She just sat in her car seat, and immediately fell asleep as soon as class started. We worked on an escape from cross-sides to arm bar that was very nice. Then open mat. I rolled with a couple of folks pretty carefully. Professor stopped class to do some promotions. Couple of white belt stripes were awarded, Jimmy from T-town MMA got a stripe on his purple belt. I was awarded my first stripe on my blue belt, AND... Paulo got his blue belt. Great stuff.Later that afternoon the wife and I went for a long stroll around the zoo.. that was it. No more training for the weekend.

I love this song.. unfortunately to hear it you'll have to look at Travis Tritt.. can't win em all.

Who am I..

A bjj black belt, a self professed 'muscle nerd," computer geek, book snob, father of two, former vegetarian, and smoked meat aficionado. As Walt Whitman said:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am vast, I contain multitudes.)
I welcome your opinions, input, commiseration, or disdain.
jbzero at msn dot com.